The papers of the family of Henry Larcom Abbot (1831-1927) span the years 1770-2001, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1832-1870. Correspondence, diaries, memoirs, military records, financial and legal records, genealogical material, photographs, writings, clippings, and mementos comprise the major part of the collection. The material is arranged alphabetically by type of material or name of creator and chronologically thereunder. Artifacts and oversize material are arranged and described according to the containers and folders from which the items were removed.

Correspondence, diaries, and memoirs of Henry L. Abbot and other family members constitute the core of the collection. Most of the letters were exchanged between Abbot and his wife, Mary Susan (“Susie”) Everett Abbot, and mother, Fanny Larcom Abbot, and reflect primarily his service in the Union army and family and social activities in Massachusetts during the Civil War. A graduate of the United States Military Academy and a career officer in the United States Army Corps of Engineers, Abbot served as a topographical engineer and Union officer throughout the war and earned numerous promotions. He was wounded at the First Battle of Bull Run, assisted with the design and construction of fortifications around the city of Washington, and served in the Peninsular Campaign. In 1863, he was commissioned colonel commanding the First Connecticut Artillery volunteers and led the siege artillery for the Union armies operating against Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia, in 1864-1865. In his letters, Abbot discreetly described movements of the army, concerns about Abraham Lincoln’s administration, African-American soldiers, religion, and Union commanders. His caution was due not only to military exigencies but also to his wife’s admonitions concerning his political differences with her family, apparently ardent abolitionists, who also had access to his letters. Abbot wrote of his achievements and occasionally of the technology of the ordnance he commanded such as larger projectiles that weighed as “much as the cannon of ten years ago.” In a letter dated July 16, 1864, his father Joseph Hale Abbot, a mathematics professor and school principal in Beverly, Massachusetts, discussed causes of the war, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Ulysses S. Grant’s situation in Virginia, and the presidential aspirations of General George McClellan.

Letters from Henry L. Abbot’s mother and wife focus on family matters and the childhood activities of his son Frederic V. Abbot. Letters also discuss the death of Abbot’s brother Edward Stanley Abbot in action at Gettysburg in 1863 and social receptions in Washington, D.C., in the 1850s, including a description of William Wilson Corcoran’s greenhouse and gallery of paintings.

Diaries and memoirs in the collection include reminiscences by Emily Everett, Henry L. Abbot’s mother-in-law. A resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, her memoirs span most of the nineteenth century with family vignettes such as helping her grandfather adjust his powdered wigs, town personalities, childhood adventures, births, and deaths. The collection also contains a journal by Abbot’s mother recording his childhood development from 1832 to 1840 and photocopies of Abbot’s Civil War diaries for 1864-1865, including his detailed index to his diaries now in the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Mementos, ships logs, maps, and biographical material comprise a file pertaining to Henry Larcom, shipmaster and Abbot’s maternal grandfather. Most of the items relate to Larcom’s survival of the wreck of the Margaret (ship) in the Atlantic Ocean in 1810. Ensnared in the confiscation of American shipping by the French during the Napoleonic Wars, Larcom and his vessel had been detained by French authorities in Naples. Unable to secure release of his vessel or its cargo, Larcom and several other American masters were permitted to return to Massachusetts on the Margaret. The ship capsized in a squall in the middle of the Atlantic, and Larcom survived over a month on the open sea before his rescue by a passing vessel. The actions of the crew during the ordeal were questioned by survivors, and several accounts of the incident are in the biographical material. Printed matter includes a recollection of the event by his daughter, Fanny Larcom Abbot, published in 1871. A shawl, rope, and kerchief salvaged by Larcom from the wreck, a pocketknife, a bound nautical volume, a “burning glass,” and a wallet comprise the mementos.

Although Henry L. Abbot published extensively in various technical journals and books, only a few of his writings are contained in the collection . His survey of the Mississippi River delta, coauthored with Andrew A. Humphreys, was translated and reproduced throughout Europe. The collection includes an Italian review of the report with a congratulatory letter from William Henry Seward, secretary of state, and a commemorative centennial reissue by the Corps of Engineers in 1961. An unidentified notebook, ca. 1828, with numerous stories, poems, and commentary is contained among the miscellaneous writings.